Affordable housing

Living outside the city limits of Whitefish, I cannot vote for the City Council members. That’s the good news. I would no doubt be frustrated as the denizens of the Nanny State and their successors will continue to be elected and my blood pressure would continue to rise.

So it’s easy for me to grumble about the pusillanimous members of the City Council who seem to spend their time living in fear of a virus that appears to be on the wane and now have bloviated about impending legislation designed to protect businesses from having to enforce mask regulations.

Why don’t you relax, boys and girls? And while you are at it, stop trying to Mau-Mau the contractors about “affordable housing” when you’ll never be able to provide adequate low-cost housing through strong-arm tactics.

The market is what it is; Whitefish is no longer a workingman’s city, and that is a doggone shame. Median house cost is $367,000, 58% above the state average.

But apart from BNSF, government and the car dealerships, what jobs are left to provide the kind of salaries that would enable workers to live in Whitefish? Stand at the intersection of U.S. 93 and Highway 40 any workday morning and you will see the large number of workers coming into Whitefish. No government program will be able to house all those folks, no matter how hard you push the developers.

The best government is the least government. In the 12th Century, King Canute demonstrated to his flattering courtiers that he had no control over the elements, by commanding the tide to not rise, which of course it did, thus demonstrating that secular power is vain. Methinks he had it right.

Cy Appel, Whitefish